THE COURT ONLY HAS A “LEGITIMACY CRISIS” WHEN IT DOES THINGS THAT DEMOCRATS DON’T LIKE….

by Glenn Reynolds

Do the Supreme Court’s Low Approval Ratings Show it is Undergoing a “Legitimacy Crisis”? The Court’s popularity has indeed fallen. But its relatively low approval ratings are neither unprecedented, nor worse than those of the other branches of government.

If it’s unpopular for doing things that Democrats like, then the problem is with Republicans undermining “Our Democracy,” not with the Court.

Plus: “It is also worth recalling that the Court’s current relatively low polling numbers are far from unprecedented. It’s 43% approval rating today is very similar to the 42% rating (with 48% disapproving) it had in 2005, after the highly unpopular ruling in Kelo v. City of New London. But the Court’s ratings soon recovered. I literally wrote the book on why Kelo was an awful ruling. But even I can’t seriously claim that it did long-term damage to the Court’s standing. The Court also stood at 42% (with 52% disapproval) in the summer of 2016 (a result possibly influenced by the Court’s unpopular decision upholding racial preferences in college admissions that year). Again, it bounced back.”

And: “If the Supreme Court’s low ratings are enough to create a legitimacy crisis, Biden is in the same boat, and Congress is in far more dire straits than either.”

Maybe our whole government is illegitimate.